“Sit For Awhile”

July 18, 2010
Luke 10:38-42

We’ve heard this story about Martha and Mary before, haven’t we, perhaps a number of times? And every time we hear it, it challenges us to think about our own relationship to Christ, and where we find ourselves today. Are we busy in the kitchen with Martha? Or are we listening to Jesus at his feet with Mary? Where is the right place to be?

Many commentaries point out the importance of "hearing and doing" in the Gospel of Luke. This story, and the one before it about the Good Samaritan, illustrates that it is both hearing and doing that matters – not one or the other. "Word and Work” are both important. Both are central to the life of faith. When Jesus was asked what it means to be faithful, he first tells a story about love in action and then follows it up with a story that teaches us sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening carefully is important, too.

It's important to be warm and friendly. Abraham’s hospitality to strangers in the book of Genesis led to all sorts of blessings. We, too, are blessed by our hospitality. However, in today’s Gospel lesson, Martha's task-oriented approach to hospitality distracts her from the very person she is welcoming. Instead of Jesus, she’s thinking about her sister, who has not helped her at all. She’s upset and because of it she’s been distracted from really connecting to Jesus.

Jesus cares about our relationships – both with God, and with one another. Both are at the heart of what it means to live faithful lives. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus teaches what it means to love our neighbor. And in today’s story of Martha and Mary, he teaches us what it means to love God.

Think about it – is there really anything we can do for God? We can do things for one another, and should. We can do things for the church, and should. And we can do things for others. Our doing is important and things like church dinners and garage sales and church potlucks and ice cream socials and gathering food items for the food pantry to feed the world wouldn’t get done without the Marthas among us. But the church should never confuse our doing with God’s doing. Our God is an awesome God, praise God!

Listening to Jesus is not opposed to serving him, but rather given priority so that the service may be fruitful. Jesus does not tell Martha she is doing the wrong thing. He says Mary has chosen the more needful thing at this point. But they will need to eat, as well! It is both-and, Mary and Martha, not either-or – which is true in our churches as well.

Jesus says that all our efforts and deeds are to be balanced and even nourished by times of doing absolutely nothing but sitting and being with God.

I imagine Martha was shocked to hear that. It is probably just as shocking for us, living in a world that seems to equate busyness with importance. Our days are packed, one after another, with so many things to do, and our minds are full and overflowing, worried and distracted, like Martha, by many things. Yet Henri Nouwen once wrote that our lives, while full, are often unfulfilled. "Our occupations and preoccupations," he said, "fill our external and internal lives to the brim. They prevent the Spirit of God from breathing freely in us and thus renewing our lives."

Can you imagine what your life would be like, even for a short time, without all of the things that keep you busy? Think about having time to yourself without any distractions, or to-do lists – time for just you and God, connected, listening to the quiet still voice of God speaking to you, deep within your heart? Such times are precious “like a jewel buried in a field” – something to give everything that is yours for. What if that time were now – making room for the Spirit of God to breathe freely in you, to renew your spirit, and refresh your life before you leave here today. [1-2 minutes of silence]

Maybe, for the time being, we just need to sit and listen, like Mary at the feet of Jesus. Or to join Martha, who has responded to Jesus invitation to leave the busy-ness of the kitchen for a while to join her sister in listening to what he has to say: "O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes fixed on things beyond me; in the quiet, I have stilled my soul like a child at rest on its mother's knee; I have stilled my soul within me. So Israel, come and hope in your Lord; do not set your eyes on things far beyond you; just come to the quiet. Come and still your soul like a child at rest on its daddy's knee; come and still your soul completely." (Psalm 131)

The point of these stories is: it's not hearing OR doing, but it's hearing AND doing the Word of God that makes us faithful disciples. If we are so busy with our "doing" that we can't stop long enough to listen for God, our lives, as Henri Nouwen says, will remain full, but unfulfilled – which is the exact opposite of "inheriting eternal life."

Jesus taught that the fulfillment of God’s promises – God’s kingdom – has already begun, and we can experience those promises in our own lives. Eternal life extends beyond heaven. Barbara Brown Taylor says: "To hear Jesus talk about it, eternal life also means hitting the jackpot now; eternal life means enjoying a depth and breadth and sweetness of life that is available right this minute and not only after we have breathed our last.... Let the summer showers of God's love soak the seeds of your right answers so that they blossom into right actions and watch the landscape… change. Just do it, and find out that when you do, you do live, and live abundantly, just like the man said."

Life abundant: full of word and work, hearing and doing, and resting in the presence of God. That is to be the life of a disciple – both your life and mine. Although the Gospel of Luke doesn’t quite say it, I would like to think Martha, after Jesus’ invitation, sat down beside her sister and listened intently to what Jesus said, and when he was through, they all got up, went to the kitchen, and prepared lunch - together.